Land of the big feet

I love looking up in old maps. 
Here are a few interesting close ups of maps from the 1500’s of what we now know as Patagonia. 

The story goes that the Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan saw giants in this area and gave them the name ‘Patagones’. ‘Pata’ is Portuguese for ‘foot’. Several other maps shows the area depicted with giants. So Patagonia was named as 'the land of the big feet'.

The earliest depiction of giants in the new world was in the in 1562 engraved map, the largest of its kind back then by the Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez and Dutch engraver Hieronymous Cock. The map Americae sive quarte orbis partis nova et exactissima, Latin for The Americas, or A New and Precise Description of the Fourth Part of the World, shows the new world with many mysterious beings like mermaids, monsters and giants.

Update Dec 6, 2023:

Here is a very nice video about the various geographic parts of Patagonia

Lazy Sunday afternoon tying

Did some tying this past sunday afternoon while my little man was handcrafting.

Atherton #1

Gray Fox

Little Marryat

An old fly called the Little Marryat I tied this past Saturday evening. It’s a pattern from the times of Preston Jennings and Rube Cross, yet it was already written about in F. Halford’s monumental book 'Floating Flies and How to Dress Them’ (1886).

Picture of color plate from Halford's book, page 92 (Wikipedia):

A very interesting video about George Marryat's ideas about his flies and techniques

Me on podcast (II)

A new podcast I did a few weeks ago, this time on Andrew Barany's Dead Drifters Society. We talked so much, the podcast is cut in two episodes. Andrew is based in Vancouver island BC, Canada.

Listen to the first part of the podcast here.

2nd part of the podcast is here.

I was also on Pete Tyjas' podcast Fly Culture last year.